A Life That Follows is an exploration of material, memory, and coexistence – transforming discarded fish skin into a material within fashion and interiors. Rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems, the project honours practices of respect, balance, and zero-waste, revealing the quiet potential of what is too often discarded. Through natural processes and careful making, waste is reimagined as something living, durable, and deeply connected.
For centuries, Indigenous communities have understood animals not as resources alone, but as sentient beings and partners in survival. To waste is to disrespect; to use fully is to remain in balance. This project draws from these philosophies, reframing innovation as a return to ancestral knowledge: “Innovation does not always have to mean invention, sometimes it means looking into the past.”
Each week, ‘waste’ fish skins were gathered from a fishmonger next door and through natural tanning methods, they are transformed slowly, attentively, into something both familiar and unfamiliar. Moving between fashion and interior contexts, the material shifts in function yet remains constant in value – testing strength, light, surface, and form.
Taking a more-than-human perspective, the work continues the life of the fish beyond its body. The skin becomes a carrier of cultural memory. Each piece is designed with an ending in mind: to one day return to the sea, to soften, to break down, and to nourish – closing a cycle rather than extending a line.
A Life That Follows invites us to honour the life that came before and celebrate a world where we can “make with” nature as a partner in coexistence and creation.
Final Project | #living materials #ancestral wisdom #coexistence.